How to Cheat the Reaper ::

How to Cheat the Reaper George Brams shivered, despite the warmth of his new car. But George never felt completely warm these days - eighty years had taken their toll on his body, and his tissue-thin flesh provided no barrier against the malevolence of a chilly December night. While locked into familiar routine of driving country lanes, George's mind drifted back to the events of the previous day, and even of the past year. Just when he thought he could safely assume that his old body held no more unpleasant surprises for him, such as his cancer scare a few years ago, strange things had begun to happen. First, there were the voices. They had started about two years ago. At first, he had assumed that an insect had become trapped in his ear, yet he quickly realized that there was not an insect in existence that made this kind of unearthly noise. They seemed to whisper to him from a great distance, yet they sounded remarkably close to his ear. He couldn't quite make out what the voices said, although he had strained his weak ears in the hope of recognizing a stray word. But the voices seemed to slither through the air, continually changing, yet always present. George even thought he recognized some of the voices - of late, they had seemed to increase in volume and urgency, which let the voices spark a fleeting recognition from him - but his memory was old and tired, and the recollection of a familiar voice was swamped in grey and disappeared from his mind. George's heart skipped a beat as he was pulled from his memories by a cat jumping into his car's path, its life saved only by George's still impressively quick reaction. After a few minutes the adrenaline began to leak from George's blood and his breathing slowed. Again the hypnotic nature of the cat's eyes studded along the black road drew George into his memories. He remembered what had happened after he had seen the doctor about the voices - the nightmares. Terrible things that waited until his mind was asleep and open to suggestion, and then dived in, filling the old man's head with such terror that he often awoke himself with his pitiful screams. Before, his wife would wake him before the nightmare reached its surreal and horrifying conclusion, but now Rose was†¦ gone.